urge parliamentary scrutiny of the state within a state of the Khakis, especially the dreaded spy agency (DGFI). The interference of the Khakis into state politics will once again jeopardize institutionalization of elective democracy, good governance and secularism. The rogues fear social justice activists, critics, politicians and journalists too - Joy Manush!

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Islamist agitation fuels unrest in Bangladesh

One night in
February, Rajib Haider was set upon near his Dhaka
home by five knife-wielding youths. His face was so lacerated that a relative
who found the body wasn't sure it was him until he called Haider's cellphone
and heard it ring inside a pocket.

Haider was a blogger, one of
hundreds in Bangladesh
demanding the death penalty for Islamist leaders accused of wartime atrocities,
whose grisly murder swelled the crowds at student-led rallies many hailed as a
"Bangladesh Spring".

But now, a radical pro-Islam
movement has emerged to counter the students it sneers at as "atheist
bloggers".

Known as Hefajat-e-Islam, it has
given the government until May 5 to introduce a new blasphemy law, reinstate
pledges to Allah in the constitution, ban women from mixing freely with men and
make Islamic education mandatory - an agenda critics say would amount to the
'Talibanisation' of Bangladesh.

The clash of ideologies could plunge
Bangladesh
into a cycle of violence as the two main political parties, locked in decades
of mutual distrust, exploit the tension between secularists and Islamists ahead
of elections that are due by next January.

"This is a confrontation
between secular and conservative orthodox interpretations of religion,"
said Muhammad Zamir, a former career diplomat and now a newspaper columnist.

Blaming the opposition Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP) for encouraging Hefajat to square off against the
students, he said "they now realise they have opened Pandora's box".

Already dozens of people have been
killed in clashes this year, mostly between Islamist party activists and
security forces, and a series of general strikes called by opposition parties
is starting to bite into the Muslim-majority country's fragile economy.

BANGLADESH'S TAHRIR SQUARE

What is now Bangladesh became part of Pakistan at the end of British colonial rule of India in 1947.
The country, then known as East Pakistan, won independence with India's help in
December 1971 following a nine-month war against the rest of Pakistan.

The trigger for this year's spasm of
unrest came in February when a tribunal set up by the government to investigate
abuses during the war sentenced a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party to life
in prison, sparing him execution.

Jamaat, an Islamist ally of the BNP
that opposed independence from Pakistan,
denies accusations that some of its leaders committed murder, rape and torture
during the conflict.

Wrangling over a war that ended 42
years ago might puzzle outsiders, but it underlines the unresolved rift within
this South Asian country of 160 million between secular nationalism and a
belief that Islam is the defining core of the state.

The tribunal's decision not to
sentence Abdul Quader Mollah to death sparked public outrage that was fuelled
by secular activists who used blogs and social media websites to call for mass
protests.

Tens of thousands poured into the
Shahbag area of central Dhaka, staging rallies
and vigils. The rise of their movement was soon referred to as a "Tahrir Square"
moment, after the scene of protests in Cairo
that led to the overthrow of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Imran H. Sarker, who gave up his
full-time job as a physician to lead the movement, says that some 60,000
Internet activists have now united under the "Shahbag" banner against
war crimes and Islamic fundamentalism.

His group now also wants the
government to ban Jamaat, whose student wing ordered the slaying of blogger
Haider, according to the confessions of five students who say they carried it
out.

"They don't even love this
country," Sarker, a softly spoken 29-year-old, told Reuters at a medical
university in Dhaka, railing against the
Islamist party. "When we play cricket against Pakistan ... they take along a
Pakistani flag."

He denied charges that
"Shahbag" enjoys backing from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's party,
the centre-left Awami League, which critics say is exploiting the war tribunal
to win votes.

However, his movement's decision to
target Jamaat convinced many that Sarker is a pawn of the government. It
shifted the narrative of the public quarrelling from war crimes to religion,
and it spurred a backlash from Islamist forces.

Blood-letting erupted across the
country at the end of February when the war crimes tribunal condemned a top
leader of the Jamaat party to hang.

The army was deployed after furious
Jamaat activists attacked police with crude bombs, swords and sticks, burnt
down houses of Awami League leaders and Hindus, and raided Hindu temples. At
least 30 people were killed on the day of the ruling alone, and the toll
ratcheted up over the next few days.

"WE ARE NOT TALIBAN"

The
emergence of Hefajat-e-Islam since then was the Islamist answer to
"Shahbag", whose momentum appears to have fizzled out. Over 100,000
people massed in central Dhaka on April 6 to
rally behind the new movement, whose name means 'protector of Islam'.

Among the speakers at that rally was
Habibur Rahman, head of a madrasa - or religious school - who told local media
after a trip to Afghanistan
in 1998 that he had met former al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and praised
"the total victory of Taliban and establishment of an Islamic state in Afghanistan".

One of Hefajat-e-Islam's leaders is
Mufti Fayez Ullah, who spoke to Reuters from a mosque that is set among the
narrow bustling streets of old Dhaka and hums with the sound of boys reciting
from the Koran, Islam's holy book.

"We have been termed as
Taliban, but this is absolutely false, baseless and nothing but propaganda
against us," he said. "But the Shahbag people are against Islam. They
humiliate men with beards and caps. It cannot be tolerated."

He said Hefajat-e-Islam's supporters
would bring Dhaka to a standstill on May 5 if
the government did not meet a list of 13 demands, which include the call for a
new law against blasphemy.

Several more verdicts are likely to
be handed down by the war crimes tribunal in coming months, keeping alive
tensions that analysts say the government and its arch-foes - the BNP and
Jamaat - will try to use to their advantage as elections loom.

For now, the bloggers vs. Islam feud
has diverted attention from a stand-off between Prime Minister Hasina and BNP
leader Begum Khaleda Zia over whether to install a caretaker authority to
ensure a free and fair election.

Both heirs to political dynasties,
Hasina and Khaleda have rotated as prime minister since 1991 amid unending
enmity.

Diplomats in Dhaka
say the interim administration row will come to a head around September.

If that impasse is not broken, the
BNP may boycott the poll, unleashing fresh unrest - or there could be a repeat
of 2007, when the army stepped in and installed a provisional government to
crack down on political thuggery and violence.